Travel: HMCS Sackville offers a window into Canada’s naval history

HMCS Sackville

Andrew Vaughan/The Canadian Press

HMCS Sackville, the last of Canada's 123 corvettes, rests at berth at the navy dockyards in Halifax.

Cabin for captain

Andrew Vaughan/The Canadian Press

The captain's cabin on HMCS Sackville, the last of Canada's 123 corvettes, is viewed in Halifax on Friday, April 5, 2013. The vessel is designated as Canada's naval memorial. Plans are in place to build a heritage centre to tell the story of our naval history, using Sackville as the centrepiece.

HALIFAX — Floating on the Halifax harbour is a living naval time capsule — a window into one of Canada’s great contributions to the Allied cause during the Second World War.

HMCS Sackville is Canada’s last corvette and now serves as a floating museum in the harbour’s salt-kissed air, generations removed from when it protected merchant ships from German submarines in the North Atlantic.

During the summer, the 71-year-old flower-class corvette is berthed at Sackville Landing, where anywhere from 6,000 to 10,000 people stop by to tour the ship, now preserved by the Canadian Naval Memorial Trust.

Sackville has even hosted royalty, as Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh visited the ship during the International Fleet Review in Halifax in June 2010.

But during the Second World War, it was young crewmen that packed the vessel — sometimes more than 100 of them at a time — sleeping like sardines in hammocks strung from the ceiling in a compartment where the men also ate and washed.

The corvettes made their reputation shepherding vulnerable merchant ships carrying food and vital supplies to Great Britain through waters infested with German U-boats. Winning the Battle of the Atlantic was vital to the Allies’ victory in the Second World War.

Visitors who come aboard Sackville catch a glimpse into those tumultuous times. Several mannequins are propped up at a picnic table to showcase the life of a Canadian sailor aboard a warship.

A tour guide explains that a wool Hudson Bay blanket was a sailor’s most prized defence against the harsh cold. On the other side of the vessel, a catwalk gives visitors a view of the ship’s engine room, where the guide says the stifling heat prompted some crew members to bake potatoes.

The ship became Canada’s naval memorial in 1985, but George Borgal says HMCS Sackville is much more than that.

“It’s also the symbol of... the coming of age of the country during the Second World War,” says Borgal, a director on the board of the trust. “We see it as a symbol of a national achievement, something much greater than it seems to be just by looking at it.”

As the last of 123 corvettes from the Second World War, Sackville has cut through many salty waters. But it’s freshwater that is threatening her preservation and has sparked a multimillion dollar effort to build a permanent structure around the ship.

“As a warship, and an elderly one at that, it suffers,” said Borgal. “The real danger is from freshwater — from inside humidity, from rain water that seeps in.”

Slated to be named the Battle of Atlantic Place, the building will provide a covered, protected area to berth the vessel in a controlled environment while still allowing HMCS Sackville to perform ceremonial functions at sea and travel for regular maintenance at a nearby dockyard.

The facility would be designed to feature an interpretive centre equipped with interactive displays highlighting the ship’s history, said Borgal.

Rowland Marshall, who served in the navy for more than 30 years, said the ship will teach future generations about Canada’s achievements during the Second World War.

“It’s a way for the youth to connect with Canada’s history,” Marshall, 85, said at a recent lunch on board the ship.

The federal government has already committed about $240,000 to the project, which is dwarfed when juxtaposed with its expected price tag: anywhere from $80 million to $100 million.

The trust hopes to have the project completed by 2017 as part of Canada’s 150th birthday celebrations.

In the meantime, visitors are welcome year-round at HMCS Sackville, seven days a week during the summer docked next to the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic and by appointment in the winter at the navy’s nearby HMC Dockyard.

The Canadian Press

If you go . . .

The ship is open to the public at Sackville Landing wharf on the Halifax waterfront from June to October from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. From November to May, visit the ship at the HMC Dockyard by appointment.